Survey shows the gap down to just 1% with the Chancellor in charge This morning’s Populus survey in the Times shows that all the pundits who were predicting poll doom and gloom for Labour in the polls because of Blair’s position had got it wrong. The shares with changes on January are: CON 36% (-3): LAB 33% (+1): LD 19% (+1). The fieldwork took place during the weekend when the media was full of honours stories. Even better from the…
This week: Sell Johnson & Blair The new weekly markets on Politicians’ Popularity offered by IG Index give us the chance to pit our wits with their market-makers on a regular basis. Mike has kindly given me the opportunity to share some analysis and tips each week; hopefully these will provoke some debate and also be profitable in the long run – we shall see! A few posters have commented on the unpredictability of the results – opinion polls naturally…
Is 50/1 against it happening a good value bet In a new market the bookmaker Stan James is offering 50/1 against this eventuality which puts the assessment of it happening at 2%. All betting is about value. How does your assessment of something happening compare with the betting prices available? If you think the probability of an outcome is better than the betting odds then you have a good value bet. Is this one worth taking? For Cameron to be…
The money piles on Royale after Sarkozy’s nomination The news that the French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, has formally clinched the ruling conservatives’ nomination for President fires the starting gun on a race that could produce the biggest UK political betting market of 2007. He now faces a tight race against the Socialist’s Segolene Royal, in the elections that take place in April and May to decide who should succeed Jacques Chircac. All the experience is that what makes a…
What could this mean for tactical voting? Detailed data from the November YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph, has the pollster showing for the first time that Lib Dem supporters prefer a David Cameron Tory government to a Gordon Brown-led Labour one. The views of declared LD supporters run against the trend of the poll where the Tory leader saw a decline in his lead amongst all the sample to CON 43% – Lab 34% to the question “If you…
Will Gordon have to wait longer before he can go at Cameron? Comments in a Radio 4 interview by the Education Secretary and possible leadership challenger, Alan Johnson, that Tony Blair would stay longer than most people were expecting has led to active trading on the departure date and the “length of third term” spread betting markets. Johnson’s comments indicated a late summer departure which could deprive the new leader of taking over while the Commons is still sitting. It’s…
No apologies – it’s back to the Blair non-departure With Tony Blair’s departure date comments in Australia continuing to cause ructions and Labour MPs calling for in that well-worn cliche a “smooth transition” I’ve returned to the political betting markets with a few hundred pounds to bet on the Prime Minister surviving. The 3/1 that’s available on him staying beyond the end of next year looks great value. There are several reasons:- Labour party rules make a challenge to the…
Are Labour MPs fearful about Gordon? The Tory party, as in the poster above, might have called on the electorate to “burst Blair’s bubble” in the 2001 General Election campaign but they lost and lost again. Now in spite of the appalling headlines there does not seem much Labour pressure for him to go. From this distance the Tory strategy behind the poster looks questionable. For all it did was to highlight what has proved to be one of Labour’s…